


The Monster Under Your Bed (in your head)

by OneSmartChicken



Series: Sociopathic Empath Joan Watson and the Messes She Gets Into (and Out Of) [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: BAMF!Joan, BAMF!John, F/M, Joan Watson - Freeform, Kid!Lock, M/M, basterdization of general fae lore, but mostly it's fluff, children being clever and also creepy, complicated genders, creepy if you're as wimpy as me, fairy tale, genderswapped John Watson, how can you tag for 'it might make you weary of your closet'?, i didn't explore it as much as i should have, i guess, implied-ish agendered characters, kinda crack tbh, no other genders were swapped in the making of this fic, nursery rhymes from the top of the author's head, or possibly agendered species, siblings John and Greg, technically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-12
Updated: 2014-11-12
Packaged: 2018-02-25 04:23:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2608352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneSmartChicken/pseuds/OneSmartChicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He'll never admit it, but when Sherlock was very, very little, he was afraid of the monster under his bed. And Mycroft will never tell a soul, but every time that monster got too frightening for Sherlock to endure, he would crawl into his big brother's bed and fall asleep there, where he was safe.</p>
<p>And together they would never tell anyone at all that the monster under the bed, as they learned, was not so scary at all. It was the one in the closet they ought to fear. The one under the bed may bite--but the one in the closet? That one would steal you away forever.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***So different from every other fic in this series I probably shouldn't even have included it***</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Monster Under Your Bed (in your head)

**Author's Note:**

> **I'm posting this without proofing it because I am literally falling asleep at my desk.** I'll give it a spellcheck and stuff later. Feel free to point out even glaringly obvious stuff though; it's all surprisingly easy to overlook.
> 
> Okay part of this was just because I wanted to write something to go with that title, not gonna lie, but it was also because of the thought that the scariest monster was the one you trusted. This isn't that at all because I wandered off and forgot what I had in mind, but hopefully someday I'll write sociopathic probably empath Watson being like "surprise sociopath!" and scaring the shit out of some Yarders and possibly Mycroft and a little bit Sherlock.
> 
> But anyway, here's some kid!lock because I fucking can. This goes so far left-field from this series that I almost didn't put it in here, but it seemed like it'd save me some explanation for my characterizations and the fact John is instead Joan. In case you don't know the answer there though--it's because I can.
> 
> I don't know how old Mycroft is compared to Sherlock, although he's always looked a good bit older. Here, he's only about four years Sherlock's senior though.
> 
> I wound up writing a "nursery rhyme"/kid's song that's supposed to be pretty blatantly wtf. I was going to use one of the common wtf ones, but then that sounded boring. So. Make up your own tune or something. The same goes for pretty much all the creatures in here. Because. Uh. Just because.
> 
> I made up a whole new set of rules for the "fae" in here. Hopefully it will be enjoyable instead of pretentious.
> 
> "Come little children" was the alternate title for this, because the song is perfect for this. Here, I had this on repeat for a while. And if you want a full playlist, it's not mine but I had [this](http://8tracks.com/nikinya/ch-t-d-i-y-ta) on for a while.

He'll never admit it, but when Sherlock was very, very little, he was afraid of the monster under his bed. And Mycroft will never tell a soul, but every time that monster got too frightening for Sherlock to endure, he would crawl into his big brother's bed and fall asleep there, where he was safe.

And together they would never tell anyone at all that the monster under the bed, as they learned, was not so scary at all. It was the one in the closet they ought to fear. The one under the bed may bite--but the one in the closet? That one would steal you away forever.

 

"The horses came for Mum today and dragged her far away.  
The horses came for Da today and dragged him far away.

Someday the horses come for me and I'll go far away.

But I shall not be dragged away though I'll go far away.  
I'll climb upon those horses see and ride them far away."

The voice was small and sweet, carrying gaily through the house. It was clearly the voice of a child, innocent and carefree. But drifting through an empty house, in which there were only two children who were both sat in silence together in the elder's room, it was a very haunting melody indeed. Of course, they were two very young children, too young to be frightened of another child's song, although they peered together in confusion, for they knew of no other children, certainly none that would wander into their home at night while their parents were away.

A bell rang a single, clear note, and the singing which had dissolved into wordless humming of the same unfamiliar tune, cut off abruptly.

"Coming!" the child called, and Mycroft and Sherlock listened to small feet running down the hall, in a very familiar direction. When silence reigned once more, Sherlock reached out and tugged his brother's sleeve.

"They went towards my room," Sherlock whispered. "What if the monster gets them?" For of course that was the reason for their togetherness; Sherlock frightened off by the monster once more.

"There should not be children here at all," Mycroft sniffed, for he and Sherlock certainly did not count (it would be years long before he looked down on his brother, and even then it would always be to see his baby brother, though he would know even Sherlock often would read disdain in his looks). "We shall go and see them off." And so he took Sherlock's hand and, together, Mycroft hiding his trepidation and Sherlock hiding against Mycroft, they marched off to find the unknown child. And yet, when they looked through Sherlock's door (which he knew he had left closed, and said as much to Mycroft) there was no child in sight.

They did not venture past the doorway, for suddenly their bravery was much less. Instead they went through all the house, checking every room. They found no other child, only a very red thread in the hall which they both knew had been cleaned before Mummy and Father left. Mycroft didn't protest when Sherlock put the thread in a box on Mycroft's vanity, only waited for the boy to satisfy himself, before they both crawled into bed, and went to sleep.

Sherlock dreamed of flying, that night, while Mycroft dreamed overmuch of horses who all wished him to ride but he didn't know how. Mycroft and Sherlock both asked to learn horseriding the very next day, and as their parents, though not always entirely attentive, tried so to dote on their boys, the two Holmes children got their wishes.

 

It was only three weeks later--although, to children so young as they, three weeks felt a great deal of time indeed--that they were alone once more in bed, awake in their empty home. And so they were awake to hear a mischievous giggle, and the scrabble of hands and feet on hardwood. And the child began to sing.

"The spirit calls and the mire falls, watch for old Lugh!" they sang, sounding as if they were wandering about in Sherlock's bedroom. The boys exchanged a puzzled look, each wondering how the child might have come in. The window, they presumed, although they hadn't heard it open, and it always creaked, they knew. "Maebelle's coming clear the halls, the bell tolls, hear it now!"

And hand-in-hand they climbed from bed and crept into the hall. They did not dare go beyond the doorway, clutching to each other as they peered into the darkness. They both watched as Sherlock's bedroom door handle turned.

"They call her queen but tis a lie--" the door swung open, a child stepped out, and all three children froze. It was, as it happened, no more identifiable in gender by sight than by sound. They, being boys, thought the fair-haired, blue-eyed little creature looked very delicate, and so both would assign the stranger female pronouns without ever questioning it.

The stranger, though, was of a much more knowing world, and so when "she" looked to them, she thought not at all of gender. Instead, she gave them one wide-eyed gape, and then scurried away, yanking the door closed behind her. The boys ran down the hall, managing to dragged the door open just in time to see--an empty room, with a closed window, and a closed closet, and a bed skirt that fluttered just a bit.

"Oh no you don't!" Mycroft declared, and being a very brave twelve-year-old, he got down on his hands and knees and stuck his head under the bed. When his big brother crawled beneath, Sherlock was left with no choice but to scramble after him, clutching at his ankle. They both sat in the darkness under the bed, wide-eyed, suddenly frightened, and they heard the closet door creak.

And then they fell.

 

"Don't let them hit their heads!" she shouted, jumping to grab the little one before he could take harm. "They're more breakable than us, Gregi, remember what Mum said!" She hugged the little one, who was as big as she, against her without letting his feet touch the ground; the herskinks didn't understand the fragility of humans and might bite.

Gregi, fortunately, had caught the bigger one, and cradled him in his arms delicately away from herskinks and merbdles and frezklies alike. The boys, as humans often did when passing through the veil, had fallen fast asleep. The natives looked nervously upwards, but when nothing more passed through, they breathed a sigh of relief and started the fortunately short trek home.

"Mum is going to yell at us," Gregi remarked as they walked down the path. Gregi was no more a boy than Ejoine was a girl, but had always thought themselves like brother and sister, for all that they were twins. They were not identical twins anyway, a rarity in the e'Fenti world, and so to them it made sense that they would not be two sisters or two brothers. The fact that Ejoine was called the sister of the pair was pure coincidence to the Holmes children's belief in her gender, but a convenient one.

"She can't yell if she doesn't know!" Ejoine protested, scrambling over a log. "Besides, we couldn't just leave them there to be--well, whatever it is the closet monster does!"

"Don't call it that! You know you're not supposed to call it that," Gregi chided. "It's no more a closet monster than we are bed monsters. And what do you mean--are you not planning to tell Mum we've just stolen two humans?"

"Well if I'm not supposed to call it the proper name and I'm not supposed to call it the closet monster, what am I supposed to call it?" Ejoine demanded. "And of course I'm not going to tell Mum we stole them! If we tell her anything we'll say we rescued them! It sounds much nicer that way."

Gregi stared at her. He scoffed, rolling his eyes at the clouds like a human asking for guidance. "I don't know why everyone thinks you're so nice," he grumbled. "It's always your dumb plans I get in trouble for."

"You don't get in trouble for the plans, dummy," Ejoine huffed. "You get in trouble because they catch you!" And then, laughing, she ran ahead. Gregi started on a few disgruntled sounds before running after her.

"This is what I mean!" he shouted, but his sister only laughed, and when she looked back, she saw him grinning.

They took the humans into the barn, high up into the loft, their limp forms slung over their shoulders as they climbed. The horse-like vervle and cretch, and the canid blari, would never let anything, even the pesky herskinks, harm guests of the household, but they would both rather not alert their mother to their misdeed with the infamous human screaming.

They laid them out on soft most, which Ejoine poked to make sure was as soft as the little boy's bed. Not that he ever used it, the weirdo.

Sitting back on their heels, the siblings stared expectantly at the brothers, and were vastly underwhelmed when nothing happened.

Gregi sighed. "When do you think they'll wake up?" he asked, for even the adults sometimes considered his sister an expert on the Other dwellers.

To his disappointment, Ejoine shrugged. "Could be a while," she admitted, though she hoped not. "Some humans sleep a really long time after they fall through the veil." Gregi considered this with a wise expression that did not befit him, in Ejoine's expression. Not because he was dumb, but because they two were not creatures given to great wisdom. They were beings of cleverness and adventure. The wise would tell stories about _them. ___

_"What if one wakes a very long time before the other?" he asked, which Ejoine was annoyed to realize might actually be quite a wise question._

_"Uh. We'll keep them calm, I guess, and wait til the other one wakes up," she tried, which sounded better off her tongue than it had in her head. Ejoine smiled. "It's hardly like either of them will get bored here. All we'll have to do is show them a herskink and they'll probably fall right back asleep! Grandmama said she knew a human who did that once."_

_"They fell asleep faced with a herskink?" Gregi demanded, for this sounded to him a very terrible response to such a thing. Herskinks were tiny and virtually harmless, but they liked to bite things, even very still things, and if it did not move, they were inclined to keep biting until the thing went away. Herskinks ate no few rocks because of this. No one seemed entirely certain what they ate other than rocks, actually._

_"Mhmm!" Ejoine nodded emphatically, seeing the same flaws as Gregi, but she had the full story, and was thus far more delighted than he. "In fact, Grandmama said the human fell asleep _all the time!_ They saw a berdleget and--" she snapped her fingers, prompting a tiny shower of sparks from the air--"right to sleep." Gregi giggled, and she grinned at him, glad he was finally relaxing, even with their evidence of misbehavior laying before them. Ejoine never saw the point in being serious very often, let alone all the time, and did her best to make Gregi laugh as much as possible._

_"Humans sound absurd," he told her, not unkindly, considering it was a topic she so loved. "Maybe they are very brave? Do they have things like dreggles through the veil?"_

_Ejoine had to think about this, for she did not know immediately, but she did not wish to disappoint Gregi when she had just told him so much. "I think," she began, "They had something called..lephelants, I think. They are very big with great big teeth that come right out of their heads! But I have never seen one, except in a book on this one's shelf." She indicated the younger boy, just in time to notice he was beginning to stir. The siblings gasped and immediately squished together, peering eagerly down at the human, although they were clever enough to stay a bit back. Not nearly as far back as they thought they were, but an effort was made not to loom._

_"My?" Sherlock wondered muzzily, even as he blinked away in the face of what was most definitely _not_ Mycroft. There were, instead, two children, one of hair so pale a blond it seemed more see-through than gold, with eyes of vast blue, and a face an older person might call very lovely indeed. Sherlock was barely more than a baby, though he did not think so, and he saw only that she had to be a girl, being so pretty as that, and that she was made of all the brightest, softest colors he had ever seen. Beside her was a child with gray hair, which Sherlock had thought only old people had, and far more muted colors, his skin much more brown than the girl's. And Sherlock thought arbitrarily that this one was a boy, because in that moment, he honestly believed that girls were different from boys only because of prettiness._

_Ejoine, having held off as long as she possibly could, leaned in so close she was nearly touching the boy with the messy black curls and bright, bright eyes. "Hello!" she beamed, restraining herself lest she fly off in an excited titter, feeling as if she might burst with all the energy fluttering about inside. "You're awake! And alive! And just fine! You are fine, right? Not hurt? We made certain the herskinks could not bite you, and Grandmama said that crossing through the veil doesn't actually hurt humans, but Mum says humans are very veeeeerry breakable. I didn't break you, did I?" She prodded at him until he slapped at her hand._

_"I'm fine," Sherlock sniffed, sitting up. "Where's My?" He did not need an answer for that, however, for he looked down and aside and found his brother right beside him. He gasped, frightened by Mycroft's terrible stillness, and this strangeness he was in. "My!" he shouted, grabbing and shaking his brother with the desperation of a scared little boy. Ejoine started to reach for him, afraid _he_ might hurt the human, but the older boy was blinking awake before she could do anything._

_"Sherlock? What--?" Mycroft began, but cut off as Sherlock threw himself bodily down, wrapping like a limpet around his brother and intending never to let go of him again. Because he remembered. He remembered very, very clearly, as one remembered things that they desperately needed to know._

_"There was something in the closet," he whispered the terrible knowledge, and suddenly Mycroft was hugging him just as tight._

_Gregi and Ejoine looked to each other for answers, and, finding none, reluctantly interrupted the brothers._

_"That's why we took you," Gregi said, apologetic to have bothered them._

_"The closet monster is very bad," Ejoine said, not apologetic at all. Gregi slapped her arm._

_"What do you mean, took us?" Mycroft asks suspiciously, sitting up to pull Sherlock protectively close. He is ready to attack for his brother, and Gregi's smile goes a bit pink around the edges._

_"I mean we heard the closet monster coming for you and you were under the bed so we just opened the veil and you fell through," Ejoine explained, it being a very simple matter in her mind. She fluttered her fingers for effect, and noticed then that she and Gregi were still wearing their geass. She nearly dropped it on impulse, always hated wearing it in e'Fenti, but remembered just in time--the screaming, the sleeping; humans were such a hassle._

_"You're not used to your hands," Mycroft observed, frowning at her. "Why?" Ejoine shrugged._

_"They're not the ones we're used to," she said, and accepted a high-five from Gregi for the accidental mysteriousness._

_"Are they not your hands?" Sherlock inquired._

_"Well, they're no one else's," she hedged._

_"How can they be yours, then, and not the ones you're used to?" he demanded._

_"We change them out, duh." Ejoine rolled her eyes. "We can hardly run around on your side looking proper. You're all terribly scream-y."_

_"I am not!" Sherlock protested because it sounded like an insult, although he had not a clue what she meant by it. "I haven't screamed this whole time."_

_"Well yeah, but you've slept, and you haven't even _seen_ anything."_

_"Well then show me something!" He suddenly burst to his feet, wobbling only a little, although he didn't move away from Mycroft. "I'll prove to you I'm not scream-y at all!"_

_Mycroft stood up, and Gregi stood up, and Ejoine stood up, and they all four went down the ladder, and it was true; even when they saw the biggest cretch, or the big black blari that Ejoine had seen make e'Fenti natives scared, they didn't scream once. In fact, they went up to the smaller vervles and gave them pets and, when Gregi offered the treats, they fed them from their hands. Ejoine was delighted. Not only did she have humans, she had humans who might not scream _or_ sleep, excepting the first instance when they came through the veil._

_"What's your name anyway?" the little one demanded, finally wandering away from the blari he had shown a particular attachment to. It was mutual, evidently, and the shaggy red beast padded eagerly after him._

_Ejoine immediately shook her head at him, lips pursed in disapproval. "You humans really _don't_ know anything," she complained._

_"Hey! Be nice," Gregi snapped, glaring at her. He smiled for the Holmes brothers as Ejoine sulked. "It's rude to ask for names here. There's--uh, well, it's complicated, but we're not allowed to tell proper names of important things to humans."_

_"Some stupid old king or queen or something made it a law and we all have to obey _all_ the laws, even the stupid ones," Ejoined grumbled. Gregi considering protesting, since they weren't supposed to talk like that, but decided not to waste his breath._

_"And then we're never supposed to ask for names of people, because some types of people can take power from being 'given' your name. And then someone figured out how to make 'what do I call you' work in the same way, and now people don't really ask for introductions, they just tell people what the refer to them as. So, uhm--I'm Greg." Ejoine snorted at the terrible name._

_"I'm Mycroft," the older boy supplied. "This is Sherlock." Sherlock looked annoyed at having Mycroft introduce him, but when Ejoine smiled at him, he smiled shyly back._

_"I'm Joan," Ejoine said, having decided months ago that Joan sounded like a very good human name, and it was just similar enough to how her Grandmama said Ejoine that she wouldn't forget to react to it. "Wanna see the herskinks? I promise not to let them bite you." Sherlock perked right up, but Mycroft looked longingly at the big cretch._

_"Uhm," Gregi--no, Greg, better not to call him Gregi at all around humans--spoke up. "I can stay here with Mycroft? E--Joan won't take him out of our yard. They'll be safe." He glanced from under his lashes at Mycroft, who pinkened a bit, but smiled._

_"Is that alright with you, Sherlock?" Mycroft asked gently. Ej--Joan bounced impatiently in place, but managed not to demand they hurry. As it turned out, she didn't need to anyway. Sherlock had settled down while meeting the animals, and he had no problem reaching out to grab Joan's hand._

_"Yeah, okay, let's go!" he demanded, and the two of them ran out the door, Joan laughing and Sherlock looking determined to see everything possible._

_The brothers watched their siblings a moment, then looked to smile at one another._

_"Joan's been wanting to show a human around this side ever since she learned they existed," Greg told him sheepishly._

_"I just hope this means Sherlock will no longer be afraid of the darkness under his bed," Mycroft sighed. "We're getting too old to share a bed."_

_Greg cocked his head. "Why would anyone be afraid of what's under their bed? There's never bad things down there. Just dust. It's the closet you have to worry about."_

_Mycroft frowned. "Yes," he murmured. "You did mention that. Tell me--what are we to do about the monster in Sherlock's closet?" He paused, stiffening. "And--there are not monsters in all closets, are there?" That made Greg laugh, though it was gentle enough for Mycroft not to take offense._

_"No, thank old Mae. Don't worry about it though; the veil isn't for your side to worry about, not yet. We'll take care of it." Greg smiled, and Mycroft wasn't quite satisfied, but the cretch demanded his attention, so Mycroft let himself be distracted._

_Sherlock was not so easily appeased. Fortunately, Joan didn't mind answering all his questions. Although she made him sit down and put a very nice junkle (Sherlock called it a "cat-bunny-pigeon" when he asked about it) in his lap so he had something to do with his hands. Then she sat down in front of him, picked up a herskink, and did her best to explain._

_"There's rules," she told him. "All the sides of the veil have different rules."_

_"There's more than two sides?" he asked._

_"There's like, a gazillion sides," she nodded sagely. "Grandmama says there's even more than one veil. Anyway, every side has their own rules, and there's all different ways they're decided. I was reading your books and I think yours is that thing called--uhm, sky-ants?"_

_"Science?" he tried to help._

_"Maybe? That sounds right. Ours are laws. Most of them are made by the latest person to think they're the ruler. No one's the ruler, ever, but for some reason there's almost always _someone_ who can make new laws. The problem is we can almost never find someone who can _break_ laws--like, destroy them completely, not just...do what they want. And the last person who could was totally crazy and wound up making a bunch of weird laws and only destroying a couple old laws and most of those were such good laws that the next rulers put them back. The closet monster though, we don't know where they get their rules, but they're very, very strict." Sherlock was wrapt, his eyes huge, and he watched as she gave her licks a lip and held up a hand to tick rules off on. "They can only have portals in closets. Not all closets, we don't really know how they pick the closets, but we know they're never far from a portal from our side. That's another rule--only our people can destroy their portals. The third rule is really important. It's why we never close the veil when we go to your side, but we always close it when we come back."_

_"Wait, why do you leave the veil open?" Sherlock frowned._

_"So we don't go back to the wrong time," she rolled her eyes at him for interrupting. Joan had recently developed a very great love for eye-rolling and did it as much as she could whenever there were no adults around. "We don't know how to get the time right yet. Anyway." She glared at him, but he didn't interrupt, so she continued, "They can only follow prey. They can't ambush you, unless you go to the closet. They have to run after you and try to catch you. Those are the three big rules we really know, but we know some habits too, because they're very bad."_

_"You said."_

_"I know, it's because they're _so, so bad._ They're super lazy, so you're usually safe going to the closet for a few minutes. Sometimes they take hours to stir, actually. They can't be out in daylight. And we're pretty sure they don't actually eat people; but they definitely take them, and we've never been able to get anyone back." Joan considered, head wobbling as she thought over what she'd said. She nodded. "That's it. You don't have to worry about yours though; we'll make sure that portal gets closed before it's a problem."_

_"You don't know how to go to the right time, but you can close portals?" Sherlock eyed her skeptically. That did make her pause though._

_"We can do it," she decided though. "I know we can. We'll just keep the veil open as an escape route. It'll be fine."_

_With that done, and them too young and arrogant to doubt it, they went back to their explorations._

_Sherlock was yawning hugely by the time they returned to the barn--Joan was yawning too, actually. Even Mycroft yawned, prompted by one of theirs. Greg, who had taken a nap while Joan was across the veil, snickered._

_"We should get you home," Joan told them reluctantly, rubbing at her eyes. "Mum's gonna be ringing her bell soon anyway and then we _have_ to go home. It's a law." She sulked, and Sherlock sulked, and they both looked exceptionally pathetic._

_"Are we taking them back ourselves?" Greg asked. Joan nodded._

_"We're gonna close their closet for them too," she said determinedly._

_Greg thought this a very foolish idea, and he only had to look at her for her to know he thought so. She smiled though, and it was her arrogant smile, the one that always ended either in tears, or impossible victory. And Greg had never been able to deny that smile._

_They trooped off out of the barn and back down the path, Sherlock and Joan holding hands as Mycroft and Greg walked close. They stopped where they had started, and Joan nodded at Greg. He stepped obligingly forward._

_"Greg's really good with opening and closing the veil," Joan explained proudly. Greg spread his hands and leaped into the air, took a huge breath, and came back down at a sedate pace._

_"Wrong time," he told them, and jumped again. "Nope," he said when he came down. "Almost," he said the third time. "Wow, no," he shook off the fourth time. "Got it!" he finally shouted, grinning enormously as he dropped down. "I think it's only about an hour after we took you. It's still night time and everything."_

_Mycroft stared warily up, and then gave Greg the same look. "How do we go through?"_

_"Just jump," Greg urged, waving his hands at them. "It pulls you in. I just stuck my head through, but you'll pop out all the way cause you don't know how to stop it yet. Don't worry, it's definitely the right one; I had to get good at this. Joan's been demanding to visit your place for _ever._ "_

_Joan blushed, started to protest, and then Sherlock grabbed her and gave her a very firm kiss. It was an awful kiss, of course. But it was also an amazing one, not because it was their first, but because it was _theirs.__

_"Don't take too long," he said, and then he and Mycroft linked hands, Sherlock unaware of the glance the two other boys (so to speak) exchanged. The brothers held on tight, and jumped._

_They both bumped their heads, and then they crawled out from under the bed. They heard the bell from the first time they heard Joan visit, and glanced down at the bed behind them, and then they looked forward and saw the closet._

_The door was wide open._

_Terror struck them as if it had never left, and they were just about to run or scream or scramble back under the bed, when suddenly there was something pushing them apart, someone shoving between them, coming up from under the bed with far more grace than such an act should ever allow for._

_It was a woman, they realized immediately. She was tall, at least from their perspective, and dressed in thick armor of metal so brilliant it was nearly white, every inch of it engraved with abstract designs, she seemed a giant. A glorious, ridiculous giant. She wore no helmet, showing off chin-length, choppy blond hair, and a square face marred by the scar on her jaw. She drew a sword that sang as it fled its sheath and sliced threw the air, and she grinned to have it in hand. When she stepped aside, there was another giant coming forth, this one in dark chainmail, a tail of spun silver coming from the back of his head, so shiny it took a moment to register as hair. He had a facial scar as well, one like a mask that spread across his eyes, as they saw when he grinned at them._

_"Stand aside," he told them gently. "We'll handle this. Onto the bed with you, you'll be safe there." He picked up Sherlock to set him in the middle of the matress, and Mycroft clambered up to sit with him, both too frightened to do anything but what they were told. They felt better with these powerful adults here, better still when the man plucked a double-bladed axe from his back, hefting the giant weapon like it was made of foam._

_"Ready?" he asked his partner, who shot him a grin that was nearly feral._

_"Been waiting a long time," she agreed, and then she pointed to the closet with her sword, squared her shoulders, and barked a sound that might have been a word, or a scream, or an earthquake._

_The monster that came from the closet was nothing the boys could have imagined, nothing they would have guess. They might have, if they had been asked, assumed the closet monster was something spider- or bear-like. Some great, shadowy creature of legend and terror. This was nothing like that. There was no comparison for it, not in either sides of the veil they had seen. It wasn't dark, though. It was colorful, actually, and it was upright, but there was nothing humanoid about it. Or, if there was, it was presented in so wrong away that their minds refused the comparison. It was a terrible thing, nothing great or legendary about it. It was nothing but a monster to frighten children, and frighten them it did. But it was not here to face children; it was here to be slain._

_It was the woman who stepped forward, the man moving to keep himself between the fight and the children. The woman did not wait, did not attempt finesse, she simply attacked. There was no art to this battle, although the woman had a fencer's grace, in some ways. It was a brutal, savage fight, the woman aiming only to kill, and the monster attempting to maim--which was somehow worse than the woman's goal, as if it had no intentions towards endings, and yet every inclination towards suffering._

_The man did not stand still, for though the room was not small, the monster was large in impossible ways, and it moved quickly and with great determination. Man and woman hacked at it viciously whenever it reached for the boys, which it seemed to do quite often._

_It seemed to do many things quite often, and the fight seemed to last forever, but when the woman lunged and the monster came apart, they both realized it had not been a very long fight at all._

_The monster lay in pieces, scattered across the room, some shiny substance that must have been its blood strewn about, a morbid confetti all around. The woman did not hesitate to step over it, ignoring how some of the limbs twitched. She walked to the man, pulling a scrap of cloth out to begin cleaning her sword._

_"You got it?" she asked, tilting her head obligingly up so the man could wipe not-blood from her cheek._

_"Of course," he rumbled. He swung the axe around, replacing it on his back, and picked his way over and around the monster chunks, heading for the closet. He thrust his hand into the murky blackness, which was substantial in a way shadows were not. "In your defeat, you are bound," he announced, voice overloud in the sudden silence post-battle, although the battle was not nearly so loud as all the fighting had made it seem. There had been no yelling or screaming, but there had been so much movement that it echoed in the ears of all involved, even the onlookers. "Honor your ways, or destruction be wrought." The house groaned, and the closet squeezed, and then everything seemed to pop, and all evidence of the monster was gone, and the closet was just a closet._

_The man sighed, and the woman sheathed her sword._

_"All that time, and that was, what, ten minutes?" she asked, equal parts amused and irritated. He checked his wrist, on which there was no actual watch._

_"More like seven," he said, and flashed her a rakish grin. She returned it, easy and relaxed at long last. His eyes flicked behind her, and then he smiled slyly at her. "You did say you'd do the talking," he drawled._

_She started, startled, lifted her hands, and then let out a little, "Oh." Turning around, they finally got a good look at their rescuer._

_It was the eyes. All the other details helped, but it was looking into her eyes that made Sherlock _know._ Because no one, _no one_ had eyes that blue._

_"Joan?" he squeaked, and his friend, who had only minutes (eight, apparently) ago been just a little shorter than him, smiled warmly down at him._

_"Hey, Sherlock." Joan brushed the hair from her face, then paused to stare at her gauntlet. It was only leather, her armor being a strange combination of styles, but she rolled her eyes like it was the most dramatic thing, and it was exactly the same eyeroll Sherlock had seen so many times. She pulled off the gauntlets and stuffed them into her belt, from which they hung looking vaguely forlorn, and were utterly ignored._

_Joan approached slowly, putting her knees on the bed so she could lean a bit closer to their eye level. "Hello," she murmured, quieter. "I'm sorry, really I am. We wanted to come right back, but Mum got the story out of us, and we couldn't convince anyone to even try getting the timing right. It's really hard, you know. Too early and you can screw up the timelines, too late, and, well--too late. So we had to do it ourselves, but Grandmama made us fight a--well, something a lot smaller than a closet monster, and we lost, so we had to spend some time training. And then we spent a _lot_ of time training, and fighting, and slaying. We practiced everything, every little thing, until we _knew_ we could do it, and then...well, here we are." She smiled at him, and though it was warm, her eyes were sad. "We can't stay," she didn't, couldn't soften it. Sherlock appreciated that she didn't try, and that she didn't say anything about his tears even when she wiped a few away._

_"I'm a lot older than you now," she sighed. "There's--there's a lot you have to do on your own. We can't visit, either, I'm sorry--I'm so sorry, really, truly I am, but we have to leave you. We'll mess everything up if we visit too soon, and you'll be impossible to find by the time you're sixteen, I can tell, you've got that smell. I don't want to be the adult to your child anyway, that's not what we are, you know it. That'd be awful, you'd hate me in a month. But I'll brave the impossible, that's okay with me. They said this was impossible and we managed just fine._

_"So--look. I promise you. No, I _swear_ , and that's a law I told you that one we're bound by our oaths, I swear we will see each other again. I can't promise more, but I can hope that, next time, we'll stay, I hope we'll be together forever the next time I see you. Until then..." She dug into a pouch, until she produced a stone; or rather, an opal, maybe. It was beautiful, glittering black with cracks of rainbows running throughout it. It was rounded and slightly flat, with a smooth hole in the middle. She held it out, and Sherlock opened his hand for her to drop it into his palm. "You can see the whole world, and all the sides of it, if you look hard enough, if you really _see._ But if you ever have trouble, look through this, it'll help. I know your side has some names for it, but we call it a Guiding Stone. Keep it, even if you decide you hate me after all."_

_She leaned in an kissed his forehead, just a quick press of lips to temple. "Remember," she whispered into his hair. "We'll be back. Greg and I both. We'll come back."_

_Joan pulled away, smiled, and started to move back from the bed. Sherlock lunged though, and caught her around the neck, diving in to hug her tight. The armor was surprisingly comfortable to lean into, and when Greg stepped close to grab both of them and Mycroft, dragging them all into a hug, every single one of them thought, just for a moment, that they wouldn't mind if they never moved again._

_"We have to go," Greg sighed, pulling away, tugging Joan with him. "It might be a long time for you, we're--" he laughed. "Joan wasn't kidding about how hard you guys become to find. But we'll do it. You don't have to wait for us, live your lives, but we'll be back. We promise." Joan grabbed his hand, and they grinned at the boys, and then they ducked down, reached under the bed, and they were gone._

_They didn't tell a soul for seven months._

_Eight child psychiatrists and one hospital later, Mycroft and Sherlock agreed it had been a very good game of imagination._

_Mycroft wasn't surprised when Sherlock started doing drugs. He was disappointed, but that didn't help. Made it worse, in fact. He continued doing his best to protect his brother though, fully intending to take over the whole world if need be. He just hoped his brother wouldn't destroy himself despite everything._

_Neither of them forgot, really, they just...didn't _remember.__

_Mycroft eventually managed to get Sherlock off the drugs, but he knew he was going to relapse, knew it in his bones that Sherlock was on the edge of something, and that edge was a cliff. He tried not to despair, but he did anyway._

_Mycroft had only really loved two people in his whole life. He liked his parents well enough, of course, but love--that was almost unique, for him._

_And of his two people, one didn't exist, and the other was trying to make himself not._

_Mycroft wondered, not for the first time, if those psychiatrists had helped--or made thing so very much worse. He rather thought the latter._

_Sherlock wanted a fix. He wanted a high. He wanted his mind to just _shut up.__

_He wanted to take the stupid rock out of his pocket and throw it into the Thames._

_Maybe he'd follow it._

_Sherlock walked through the night and didn't think of the sun, and Sherlock Holmes nearly became no more that night. If not for one, single crime scene._

_He sneered at it, at first. Sneered because he could solve it, but they'd just throw him out. Again. Wouldn't listen to a word he said. He started to move on, but a flash of silver caught his eye. His breath caught so hard he thought, briefly, he might have choked on his tongue._

_He was--he was hallucinating. Fuck. He'd finally done it. He didn't even remember what he'd taken, but he must have taken something, he was going round the bend._

_But everyone was listening to the gray-haired man, and he didn't look _quite_ the same, really--his hair was cut short, and his scar was gone, and he was wearing boring, normal clothes instead of chainmail, or the odd, unidentifiable cloth the children had worn. His head turned though, and his gaze caught on Sherlock, and those bright eyes lit with recognition._

_"Sherlock!" he shouted, and he nearly ran across the crime scene, people dodging out of the way when he showed no intention of ducking around them. He grabbed Sherlock before he could bolt, and dragged him in to a back-slapping hug, laughing incredulously into Sherlock's collar. "Oh you just missed Joan!" he exclaimed, suddenly pulling away to hold Sherlock by the shoulders. This his head rolled and he made the face Sherlock distinctly remembered as _translating it into human._ "Well, no. Yes? No. She just missed you, I suppose. She's off to your--your thing. The human thing, overseas, sandy place? Oh, war, that. We've got that too, mind you, but without the dragons it just doesn't _feel_ like war."_

_He slung an arm around Sherlock shoulders and hauled him off, apparently having decided they were taking a walk._

_Sherlock finally gave in and just asked, hoping his voice didn't break as much as it felt like, _"Greg?"__

_Greg, _Greg_ shot him a grin. "That's me. You didn't forget us after all. That's great. We really missed you guys. How's your brother? Never mind, I'll ask him myself, you can call him, right? Tell him I want to see him. Joan's bored, she'll be coming back to London soon anyway. She's been over there long enough to get a decent ranking, a new skillset, _and_ a reputation, which she says is more than she wanted anyway. I think she was planning to check America for you next, although she'd probably be back from there even faster."_

_"Why would I be in America?" Sherlock scowled, trying and failing to make some semblance of order in his suddenly chaotic mind palace._

_"Why would you be in Afghanistan?" Greg returned. He shrugged. "She said she didn't want to spend forever tromping around London without a proper guide, and then pretended she thought you'd be exploring the world. Pretty sure she figured you'd want to show her around your city and didn't want to ruin it for you." Sherlock didn't say anything, but his ears turned pink. Greg laughed. "Alright. I'll make sure she's on her way home. Go call your brother--and for fuck's sake, Sherlock, clean up. She's gonna be ticked as is."_

_Sherlock called Mycroft, who arrived in about half the time it should have taken him, and left as the polite greetings turned into soft flirtations._

_He went home and threw out anything related to drugs, every contact or hidden stash, everything. He hung the rock on a chain around his neck, and he called in a favor for a new flat. He had no intention of showing this to Joan._

_Four weeks later, Mycroft called him, and they wound up waiting in an airport together, standing about without even a sign to occupy their hands. None of them saw her; none of them really knew what to look for. They certainly weren't looking for an unassuming woman with her short hair pulled back in a tiny ponytail, leaning on both a cane and a tall man that looked around her age, wearing a knit jumper, of all things. It was the man that was spotted first, actually, Greg frowning before suddenly smiling and gesturing towards them. They looked, and the woman looked up, and even with twenty meters between them, Sherlock could see that blue._

_Joan dropped her cane, released the man, and ran full-tilt, no holding back. She wrapped her around around Sherlock, nearly knocking the wind out of him, lifted him straight up in the air, and spun him around and a loud, delighted laugh._

_"Sherlock!" she cried, dropping him to his feet to grin at him._

_"Joan," he agreed, finding himself suddenly uncertain of everything. He might have embarrassed himself, or entirely mucked things up, expecting them to be slow and boring like Mycroft and Greg, who still were only slightly more than flirting. Joan saved him from himself though, caught him by the lapels and dragged him down. She cupped her hands around his cheeks, and reached up to hold her wrists, his fingers huge around the tiny, slender joint. She was so much shorter than him, so tiny, and yet as their mouths met in a kiss much softer than everything else about their reunion had been thus far, he felt like he was still smaller than her. Still safe in her shadow._

_She kissed him and he kissed her and they kissed and kissed and kissed again, and it wasn't what Sherlock had expected, but it was much, much better. Sometimes his eyes were closed, sometimes they weren't, and sometimes he got to gaze into those blue depths and feel like he wasn't a massive cock-up._

_Eventually they had to separate, Sherlock reluctantly straightening as Joan sunk down onto the flats of her feet. She didn't move away though, and he only flinched a little when she linked the fingers of one hand through his._

_"Sherlock," she smiled, then gestured to the very amused looking man holding her cane. "This is my uncle--call him Bill, or Murray, your choice. He's our Mum's sister, but he never visits because Mum always throws badger acid at him when he does. For not visiting, of course. He's been on this side for centuries though, so he's been helping Greg and I out. Bill, this is Sherlock."_

_"The one you've been looking for, aye," Bill nodded. He grinned as he stepped forward to offer him a hand. Sherlock shook it. "And you must be Mycroft," Bill continued, turning to offer the same greeting to Mycroft, who smiled as he accepted the handshake. "I'm glad you found each other then. It's about time; these two have been insufferable for decades."_

_"You're one to talk. Go get my bags, old man," Joan retorted, shooing him. He scrunched his nose at her, and they had a brief, insulting conversation via facial expressions, but he eventually when to fetch her bags._

_Joan stepped in closer, squeezing Sherlock's hand. "I can't believe you hurt yourself," she murmurs, slants him a disapproving look. He stiffens, prepared to pull away, but she just tugs on his hand and leans up to kiss the edge of his mouth. And then, the matter is apparently addressed, for now at least, and she moves on, louder this time. "I've been very bored. I tried going back to your house and just asking people, but no one even knew who I was talking about, and I thought I was going to have to start putting out ads for you, but here you are, and I have been _so very bored._ I hope you have something to entertain me with, Sherlock." And Sherlock did. He showed her the city, showed her the _world_ as they pleased, and Joan was never bored, and when Mycroft and Sherlock were as gray as Greg had ever been, they stepped through the veil and they never looked back._

**Author's Note:**

> A few things that got left out because I couldn't think of where to fit all the little Mystrade stuff in:  
> "Lestrade" sounds like their mum's name, and "Watson" sounds like their grandmother's name, in the same way Greg and Joan "sound like" Gregi and Ejoine. I had a part written where Greg tells Sherlock that he and Joan "threw bones" to see who got which name. There's another random sentence in which Mycroft finds out Greg's legal name is 'Gregory' and then he proceeds to 'use it like a normal person would use a pet name.'
> 
> There's a few things I wrote in the "planning" portion where I liked the wording better there, but couldn't put it into the actually story like that, which I'm sad about, but hopefully this is enjoyable overall. I wanted to give them something of a happily ever after, and since there was some creepy ass shit (for my level of writing creepy shit, which is to say, I don't) I didn't really feel like making this at all angsty, unless I couldn't help it, like in the case of Sherlock's drug usage. Joan came out very different than I usually write either Joan or John, to the point where she doesn't feel like Watson at all, but I enjoyed her as-is too much to care. I think she's very different around other people, but I don't think a "fae" like Joan would ever be truly like a Watson, now how I've written the "fae" here. Especially since, for once, I totally left out any and all child abuse. So this is actually a very happy Joan, although she's totally at least a little bit of a sociopath.
> 
> This is so different from the rest of the series I don't even know what to do about it? ??? I intended Joan to be empathic again, and I think she is, but we didn't delve into it because I got into a really weird mood writing this and somehow it turned into a fairy tale thing.
> 
> ANYWAY I'll stop clucking. Thank you so much to anyone who read this! And if you'd like a follow-up, this is definitely something I'd love to be poked at for more of, because I probably need to roll around in this universe a little more, but I need an excuse. I hope you all enjoyed it though! ^v^
> 
>  
> 
> oh i just realized i never explained why joan wasn't supposed to call the closet monster by its proper name--it's actually fae superstition, think like voldemort. in case it sounded like there was something more mysterious afoot there.


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